Thursday, February 3, 2011

Spin Cycle

Today Amanda, Christina, and I were supposed to go to Kickboxing at our on-campus gym. We were super excited about it because we'd been planning to take a class since last semester. Before I left, I told Hunter how excited I was about kickboxing and how relieved I was that it wasn't a spin class. In fact, some of the last words I said to him were "I'll never take a spin class."

Famous last words right? We got to the gym early, but they only had two spots left for the Kickboxing class. Since there were 3 of us, that wouldn't work. The instructor told us that there was an open spin class down the hall. Unwilling to let our 20 minute drive to campus go to waste, we headed down to the open studio. I was already quietly dreading it. I've always thought of spin classes as being for "uber-athletes" only. I remember watching them at our old gym and just being super intimidated. I thought there was no way I could ever do it!

We got started with an easy warm-up and then headed into a sprint exercise. After the first fifteen minutes, I felt comfortable. The instructor took us into the standing and hovering positions pretty early on and I was surprised that I could do them without too much difficulty. I decided my goal for the work-out was to do all the exercises without having to sit down when we were supposed to be in a different position. We did two different hill exercises and several jumps (where you go from sitting to standing to hovering really quickly) as well as some other sprints. I managed to make it through the whole work-out without feeling like I was going to die. I didn't put on my resistance as high as it could go, so I know I could have made it harder. What I was happiest with though is that at the end, I didn't feel like i'd been run over by a truck! We all really liked the class and we plan to go back on Monday in addition to finally making Thursday kickboxing.

It reminded me that I've got to continually push myself outside my comfort zone. I get so used to thinking I can't run faster or that I can't do any more strength training. In order to get stronger and healthier, I've got to challenge myself because I know my body can take it. While I'm not an "uber-athlete" or anything, I am capable of a lot. I've just got to continue to believe that.